Book Review: Augusta, Gone

Augusta, Gone

by

Martha Tod Dudman

Quote: "She's only fifteen. You have to remember that. She's just a kid."~ Martha(Mom) pg. 62

Started: June 7, 2018

Finished: June 14, 2018

paperback 256 pages

From the cover:

True, she had stopped coming down for breakfast. Stayed up in her room, ran out the door late for school, missed the bus and had to have a ride. But, you think, well, that's how they are, aren't they, teenagers? And you try to remember how you were, but you were different, and the times were different and it was so long ago. And she's suddenly so angry at you, but then, another time, she's just the same. She's just your little girl. You sit with her and you talk about something, or you go shopping for school clothes and everything seems all right. And you forget how you stood in her room and how the center of your stomach felt so cold. When you found the cigarette. When you found the blue pipe. When you found the little bag, she said it was aspirin.

My Review:

*spoiler-ish* information

This book was a hard one for me to get through. Not because of Augusta, or even all her crazy rebellious acts or her cussing or her scary path she was taking.

The worst part for me was absolutely....MARTHA!

Seriously, this woman, this mother was the whack job, not her daughter.

I can't even say she was blindsided or naive. She knew!

She knew and saw and heard and STILL never really got it! Or never cared to take any responsibility.

I won't go so far as to say she was 100% responsible for her own daughter's chosen path, but she sure as Hell saw it coming, witnessed enough to know, made up every excuse, and completely ignored every opportunity at early intervention.

There are several quotes and thoughts from Martha herself where she saw things, heard things, assumed and either never mentioned them to Augusta, or waited until it was too far gone for those first little things to even be relevant.

Several conversations:

"You can't come get me. I'm not coming home!"~ Augusta

"I'm not. Can I have the phone number?"~ Martha

WHAT??? She's your daughter! 

(Oh, ok honey. Mommy will just sit on my thumbs while you run around town all night... Call me!)

And, my quote I posted above.

She is 15! You are telling a girl who has just told you that she is a 19/20-year-old college dropout, that you know YOUR daughter is hanging around with in a "party house" that SHE, SHE needs to remember your daughter is just a kid!

Wow, Lady! Wow! #motheroftheyear

I haven't even gotten to the stuff that really ground my nerves about "mom"!

She has got to be the most selfish, me, me, me person I have read about.

All she keeps going on and on about is her damn hikes! Up the mountain, down the mountain!

Maybe she should have spent that time, oh, I don't know, focusing on BOTH her kids.

Yup, that's right. There is a son. Younger even than fifteen-year-old Augusta.

He's pretty much a non-existent participant in the book(I had to go back and find his name in the book. I couldn't even remember him), which seems to be his role in real life.

He's probably 13 or 14 when the book starts and nope, mom not there. He's just cruising town, doing his own thing too. He's only mentioned briefly and makes his big appearance...when he gets in trouble and suspended from school.

Way to show her how to get attention, Jack!

Martha also has this very arrogant or maybe snobbish attitude. She is constantly judging others by their appearance.

Augusta gets a bad spider bite while at camp, and Martha actually makes several comments throughout the book about her daughter's "ruined face."

When she meets Rose, Augusta's favorite teacher/adviser, Martha says "As I expected, really fat."

And later when they have a dance,

"I hope no one has to dance with her, she is enormous!"

There was another line, I can't find, where she makes a remark about a boy's appearance. I can't quote it, but I got the impression, based on one glimpse of him and his attire, he wasn't the type for her daughter.

She just made me feel like everyone was less than her, and she was so above anything going on around her.

This whole book was about her. Not her daughter or the struggles THEY went through.

It was about her divorce, her working, her time to hike, her hiding things from co-workers, even her damn boyfriend that she was really just keeping around to have someone to call at 2 or 3am when she couldn't sleep. It was all about how everyone and everything was such an inconvenience to her life or the life that she wanted.

Boo, you Martha! 

While, I did complete this book, I will not be recommending it to anyone, unless they want to read a book about a self-centered mother and all her woes.

Click below if you'd like this book.

Augusta, Gone by Martha Tod Dudman